December 19, 2009

This is something I've been thinking about for a while and my lovely wife Belle and I were talking about it on the phone yesterday and I'd like to just get it down on virtual paper.

Oh and be warned, I say "inspiration" 4943 times and sounds really pretentious but whatevs.

You know, it's weird because Belle and I sort of fed off of each other for inspiration for a while. Then I don't know how it started but we both began feeling pretty blah. It feels like for months I've had random bursts of inspiration, but it's mostly just been monotonous, formulaic, or making sure I just barely have a decent outfit so I don't feel TOO lazy. Sure, there is inspiration that is more direct...a color scheme of a photo that you want to incorporate into outfit form, a character from a movie...but the inspiration to simply just be creative is harder to hold on to.

Which brings me to this photo from FRUiTS magazine, a Japanese publication that is all street style:

Girl is walking around on the streets wearing a crown, pink streaks in her hair, a long flowing skirt and tabi boots. And carrying a birdcage.

And then people like this girl in FRUiTS, or mad old women, or funny toddlers, who dress for the same reasons and may not even know it's called fashion, inspire me as well. They make me want to write a story using what's in my closet, or in a kitchen cabinet waiting to become some type of headpiece.

And that, in the end, is all I want to do. Use my resources, and just have fun with dressing. Weirdly enough, it's when people anywhere-outside, in school, online-don't understand my outfits or style that motivates me to just be stranger. Not that I think I'm Bob Dylan or some type of ENIGMATIC ARTISTE or an artist at all, but this refusal of others to try and understand why somebody dresses a certain way (for which the real reasons are, in the end, nothing complex) just makes me want to dress more obnoxiously. Be more difficult to understand, more over their heads.

Or, I'm a malicious and spiteful teenager!

But really, I love it when I love my outfit and I walk from class to class and feel like I'm practically floating. My head is bobbing around like Bjork's when she walked for Jean Paul Gaultier and I just feel very confident in myself, not because I think other people will like my outfit but just because I do. And maybe even because I know other people won't like it because it isolates me and I can be in my own world for a bit. And it makes me feel good, and being creative makes me feel good.

And I think that is all I really want to do, and have ever wanted to do. The idea of being a mad eccentric who is constantly slipping into different skins is so appealing to me. I started this blog because I wanted to explore my style. Now I have more of an idea of what it is and will just continue to try and apply it every day.

Now, another reason I started is because I wanted to be part of the fashion blogging community and because I think fashion should be discussed. So let's get a discussion going: What inspires you? What keeps you in love with clothes? What makes you stray from sweatpants every day? Tell me.